Living Dangerously

by Dan Latus

  ‘It’s the rural economy,’ I told him loftily.

  ‘Sheep, and stuff?’

  ‘And forestry. Quarrying, maybe. I don’t know. Where I live, fishing is pretty big, but it won’t be here. Hill farming mostly, I would think.’

  ‘Sheep, then?’

  ‘Probably.’

  We seemed to be on speaking terms now, although the conversation was pretty rudimentary. Still, I was relieved. The lad was prepared to talk to me at last. That was progress.

  As we pressed on up a long valley leading into the hills, I sensed Tom’s interest and enthusiasm waning. The talking stopped, apart from the occasional terse instruction to turn left or right. But finally, we were there.

  It was dark by then. The two cottages were both in blackness. Without our headlights, we wouldn’t even have been able to see them. No light pollution at all. Townie campaigners on that subject would have been delighted.

  I left Tom in the car while I retrieved the keys from the shed where Pete had said they were kept. Then I let myself into what I’d been told was the better of the two cottages and switched on the lights.

  My first impression was that it was dark, cold and damp. I walked through the place and understood why Pete had trouble letting it in winter. It was an ice-box. The ashes in the hearth had been there months, and there was no other means of heating the cottage. Condensation from my own breath hung in the air in clouds. It was utterly miserable.

  We had no food either. Pete had said there would be some in the kitchen, and there was: half a dozen tins of baked beans and a couple more of tomato soup. I grimaced. We weren’t that desperate.

  I walked back to the car, got in and started the engine. Tom looked at me expectantly.

  ‘We’re not stopping here,’ I told him. ‘It’s a dump. Let’s get back to that village we passed through.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that!’ he said, making it sound heart-felt.

  So we returned to the village we had passed through half an hour earlier and found rooms in The Shepherd’s Rest. Tom seemed hugely relieved and grateful for my decision to abandon the cottage. It had put him in a better mood. So we had a beer in the bar while we considered the evening meal menu.

  ‘It’s not bad, this place,’ he said, looking round at the trappings of an ancient coaching inn.

  ‘Better than the cottage, anyway,’ I suggested.

  He shuddered. Then he grinned. ‘What would we have done there?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but at least we’d have been out of sight. Abandoned and forgotten, probably. Maybe that would have been a good thing.’

  We were talking again. It seemed like an opportunity to try to winkle some information out of him.

  ‘You’ve had a rough year?’ I suggested.

  He grimaced. ‘Longer than that, actually. It was all unnecessary, as well. If only my bloody father had had more sense!’

  ‘Well, he could hardly have prevented you getting pissed, although I suppose he needn’t have given you such a powerful car for a birthday present.’

  ‘Is that what they told you it was about?’ Tom shook his head. ‘It goes back before that. You have no idea.’

  He was right. I didn’t. The situation was beginning to seem more complex with every passing moment.

  ‘This Logan guy seems a bit special,’ I suggested. ‘He certainly has a lot of manpower at his disposal.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Tom paused for a moment and then added, ‘He’s a big operator down south somewhere.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘A gangland boss?’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘What’s he doing up here? He came, mob-handed, because of his son’s death?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘He was here already.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Trying to muscle in on stuff that was nothing to do with him. Ask my dad. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  My perspective was changing fast. As I’d begun to suspect, there had been some sort of involvement between the Steeles and Logan even before the accident.

  ‘But Logan’s son was killed? That, at least, is true?’

  Tom nodded. ‘Yeah. I ran him over.’

  So what did it all mean? I was even more confused. But I didn’t want to milk the lad dry all in one go. So I changed the subject.

  ‘What do you fancy to eat?’

  ‘Steak and chips.’

  ‘OK. Me, too. Go and place the order.’

  ‘Put it on your room number?’

  ‘Why not?’ I said, grinning. ‘For once I won’t mind settling the bill.’

  He got up.

  ‘One more thing, Tom,’ I said. ‘Did you know Logan before all this started?’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t. But my dad did, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Did that have anything to do with the accident?’

  ‘Accident?’ he said with a bitter little laugh. ‘What accident?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  I left it there. There was plenty of time to find out more. I didn’t want to push Tom hard that first evening, not when we had just started to get on a little better. Anyway, I had learned a few things already, and they were troubling me. I needed to think.

  So Josh Steele had known Logan before the accident – if, indeed, accident was what it had been? I wondered how that had come about. I wondered that a lot. Josh and a London gangster? Was there an innocent explanation? I hoped so, but I wasn’t confident.

  And if it wasn’t an accident, what was it? Tom said he had run over Logan’s son, but in what circumstances? He had implied that it had been deliberate.

  Tom’s attitude to his father was troubling, too. There was a lot of hostility coming out of the lad. For some reason, he blamed Josh for what had happened, and for his year in custody. If he was right, the hostility was justified, but was he right?

  Anne’s attitude to Josh was more easily explained. She, too, blamed Josh for the trouble Tom had found – and probably for everything else as well.

  Poor Josh. One way or another, things were not great in the Steele family.

  I shook my head and reminded myself yet again that whatever the background story, my job was just to keep Tom safe. That was all I was being paid to do. Solving criminal mysteries – homicides even – was what Bill Peart did for a living. He could get on with it. I was going to keep things as simple and straightforward as I could.

  Later, when I was back in my room, Bill phoned. He must have known I’d been thinking of him. I grimaced when I saw from the screen who it was, but I took the call.

  ‘Hi, Bill!’

  ‘So you are involved?’

  ‘Say that again?’

  He snorted with indignation. ‘I’m going to have to drag it out of you, am I?’

  I weighed up the options. On the whole, it seemed better to avoid antagonizing him further. We would probably need each other again, if only to go fishing. I would struggle to get Jimmy Mack’s boat in the water single-handed. Besides, Bill wouldn’t always be able to solve crimes without my help.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything – before I arrest you and charge you with obstructing justice.’

  I sighed. ‘OK. Put the handcuffs away. Here it is. First, I was visited yesterday morning by Mr and Mrs Steele. They had a proposition for me.’

  ‘Oh, boy! I can’t wait to hear what it was.’

  I let a silence grow between us.

  ‘OK,’ he said wearily. ‘Just tell me – in your own words.’

  I grinned. His need to know was greater than my need to tell. That put me in a happy position.

  ‘Their son, Tom, had just been released from youth custody at a young offender centre. He’d been sent there for a drink-driving offence.’

  ‘And for running somebody over and killing them.’

  ‘Well, yes. So I understand. He did run a lad over, apparently, and sadly the lad died. But Tom is a decent enough kid. He’s
not a hard case or an habitual offender.’

  ‘Spare me the character reference, Frank. I just want some facts.’

  ‘I’m telling you how I see him.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘Anyway, his parents were concerned for Tom because of threats they had received, threats to kill him in retaliation for the other lad’s death. So they asked me to take him out of circulation and look after him while they tried to sort things out. That’s what I’m doing.

  ‘That’s all I’m doing,’ I added for emphasis.

  ‘In exchange for…?’

  ‘They’re paying me a fee, if that’s what you mean. Of course they are.’

  ‘A fee of…?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘It might be. I might make it my business.’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ I said with a shrug.

  He let it slide. Instead, he saw other ways of having a go at me.

  ‘The husband and wife – and you, for that matter – didn’t consider that these threats to the son might be police business?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Steele are very grateful for what the police have done so far,’ I said tonelessly, ‘but they remain very worried about the well-being of their son and decided to take additional precautions.’

  He chuckled without sounding terribly amused. ‘OK, Frank. I get the picture. I don’t suppose you want to tell me where you’ve stashed the lad?’

  ‘Nowhere at the moment. We’re travelling. How are you getting on with investigating the attack on the Steeles’ home?’

  Another sardonic chuckle. ‘They’ve told you, I take it, that they’re at war with a man called Logan, the man whose son the Steeles’ kid ran over?’

  I grimaced. He was making it sound like a mafia confrontation. But perhaps that was what it was.

  ‘I gather Logan’s been attacking their business premises,’ I admitted.

  ‘He certainly has. A timber compound of theirs in South Bank went up in flames the night before last. That was the latest in a long line of such incidents. Now their home has been attacked.’

  ‘Who is he, Bill, this Logan character?’

  ‘I don’t know much about him, but I keep hearing the “big operator down south” phrase. Boss of some sort of criminal gang. Essex-based, I gather. The death of his son seems to have brought him up here intent on wreaking vengeance.

  ‘And now we’ve got a badly injured officer his thugs beat up to worry about, as well. He may not make it, I’m sorry to say.’

  I grimaced. ‘Sorry to hear that, Bill. But my information – my very limited information – is that Logan was here already. It wasn’t the death of his son that brought him up to Teesside.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Bill said slowly. ‘Now that’s interesting. Did he and Steele know each other beforehand?’

  ‘I’m told they did. But I don’t know the context.’

  ‘That’s worth looking into. Thanks, Frank.’

  ‘What do you know about Josh Steele?’ I asked, eager to get something in return.

  ‘Well, until now, he’s always seemed… what’s the word? Irreproachable? That’s the one. A successful businessman, with a growing empire. And a pillar of the community. Lots of good works to his name.’

  ‘Until now?’

  ‘Well, if he knew Logan before all this kicked off, you have to wonder, don’t you?’

  You did, indeed.

  Meanwhile, Tom was getting on very well. He had found a place at the pool table, where he was playing with a group of local lads. I got another pint, and sat and watched – all expenses paid. This was the life!

  I soon found myself wondering about the Steele family again. It’s always like that. You take on a client and before long you’re deconstructing the story they told you, and trying to make better sense of it. You can’t do the job you’re being paid for otherwise.

  What I knew now was that if I was to help Tom survive, I needed a better idea of what I was up against. I no longer believed what Josh and Anne had told me.

  So Josh Steele was a successful and eminent businessman with an impressive industrial spread and a posh house. He had a smart, good-looking wife, too, even if he wasn’t flavour of the month with her just now. And he had a troubled son who hadn’t finished paying the price for a tragedy for which he still seemed to have been responsible.

  He also had a professional criminal on his back, a man with a big reputation and a lot of resources to deploy.

  Not an entirely wonderful life, after all.

  The question particularly intriguing me now was the one Bill Peart had seized on: how come Steele and Logan had known each other before the death of Logan’s son? There seemed no reason for it. No good reason, at least.

  ‘Another pint, Frank?’

  I looked up. ‘Thanks, Tom. Game over?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He grinned and added, ‘I wiped the floor with them. They’re just woollybacks out here.’

  ‘Better not let them hear you say it.’

  ‘Oh, they’re all right. Good lads, actually.’

  I was pleased, and relieved. Getting on with locals his own age might make our stay here easier.

  ‘Remember the cover story,’ I told him. ‘We’re here for a few days convalescence as you’ve just come out of hospital.’

  He grinned. ‘Boy, you’ve thought of everything!’

  ‘That’s right. Every contingency. We might do a spot of fishing while we’re here, you can tell them.’

  ‘Fishing?’

  He looked at me as if he was about to vomit.

  ‘Well, we have to do something. What else is there? Walking? Bird watching?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who had the bright idea of coming here.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom. Fishing it is, then.’

  ‘Cod, or what?’

  ‘Salmon or trout, Tom. It’s a river they have here, not the bloody sea.’

  We sat in a companionable silence for a while, watching the pool players, listening to the big wall clock sounding out the minutes and the low hum of conversation at the bar. I began to wonder if there was anything on TV.

  Then Tom’s phone went off while he was coming back from the gents. He answered it before I could intercept him.

  ‘My girlfriend,’ he said afterwards with a shrug, looking both uncomfortable and defiant. ‘She says she’s on her way here.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Tell me it’s not true!’ I demanded.

  He just shrugged again.

  I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. I couldn’t believe it. After all I’d said!

  ‘That’s Julie, is it?’ I asked, struggling to keep my voice neutral.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How does she know where we are, Tom?’

  ‘I couldn’t not tell her!’

  ‘Oh yes you could.’

  ‘She said she’s been waiting a whole year for me to get out. I had to tell her.’

  ‘You’re too soft, Tom,’ I said with a weary sigh.

  The bad moment had passed. My incredulity was beginning to fade. I needed to cope with the new reality.

  ‘She stood by me,’ he said stubbornly.

  I nodded. ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t get you killed.’

  He gave a scornful laugh.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘You don’t think Logan’s bright enough to have had men watching her, ready to follow her to you?’

  His expression froze as he realized the implications at last.

  ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.’

  Ten minutes later we were on the road, heading back to Pete’s cottage.

  ‘Give me your mobile,’ I said.

  ‘My phone? No way!’

  ‘Give me it now, or I turn round and take you back to your parents’ house in Marton.’

  ‘You can’t …’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘My father paid you …’

  ‘I’ll give him his money b
ack. I can’t protect you if you ignore my instructions and insist on doing stupid things I warned you about.’

  ‘Just who the fuck do you think you are?’

  I pulled over and stopped the car. I turned to look at him in the dim light from the dashboard. He looked uneasy and mad, both at the same time.

  ‘Tom, let me spell it out again for you. Because we’re together, my life is at stake, as well as yours. You might be prepared to throw your own life away, but mine isn’t going with it. Do it my way, or I’m out of here.

  ‘Now what’s it to be? Are you going to hand over the phone, or do you want me to take you home to Mummy and Daddy?’

  We sat still and quiet for a few moments in an atmosphere that was brittle, to say the least. Then he pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it over without another word. He wasn’t happy about it. His face was blank but he was humiliated, and I could tell that inwardly he was seething.

  So what? I’d warned him more than once. And I couldn’t trust him anymore.

  Ten minutes up the road, he said, ‘What about Julie? We should tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what? Where we’re going?’

  ‘Let her know we’ve left the pub.’

  I thought about it. Maybe we should. She could turn back. There was no point letting her drive all the way out here to the village.

  I pulled over again and took out his phone. ‘Get her. But I’ll do the talking.’

  He did the business and handed the phone back. It rang twice before our call was answered.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘No, it isn’t Tom. But I’m with him, and I’m speaking for him.’

  ‘Put Tom on the phone.’

  It didn’t sound like the dizzy young girl I’d met at the house in Marton.

  ‘Who is this?’ I asked.

  ‘Never mind that. Just put Tom on the phone, please.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen. I’m phoning to say that we’ve left the place you know about, and we don’t want you trying to follow us. For Tom’s sake, you should turn round and go home.’

  ‘If you don’t put my nephew on the phone, my brother-in-law will skin you alive!’

  Ah!

  ‘Senga, is it?’

  ‘Never mind who.’

  ‘Turn round and go home, Senga. And take Julie with you. We don’t want you following us. You’re a danger to yourselves and to Tom.’